Her Past, Rinoa's Future?
by snowgem
Summary: A oneshot of Rinoa in the future - and of Ultimecia's past.


She stared off into the dead, grey landscape, thinking of the person she had promised to wait for. She had waited. He had returned. Then, without a word, he had left her. Down Death's path - a dead end. So she was left to keep on waiting.

The fields of flowers were dead. The very fields where she had danced with him before, holding him close to her heart, her wings unfurling, ready to take them both up into the air... but with his death, they only served as a reminder of his absence.

She had given up her old name when her lover - her knight - died. The name brought back too many memories - memories of what she should have become, could have become, if fate had not taken her and unceremoniously thrown her off the plains of mortality.

Doomed to live a cursed, immortal life; never to die a natural death. Sorceress - a name which condemned her presence the moment she set foot on her native soil, a life that was but a half-life. But what was that to her? The only one who mattered was gone...

The first thousand years were spent in tears. The next thousand, spent in pain. The next thousand, in bitterness. All who loved her were now gone, those who promised to be there for her if she ever needed them. After his death, she had rejected all of their help, and after many failed attempts, they went back to their cosy family life, pleased with their own kindness for having offered help to a friend, and feeling no more than pathetic, _gratuitous _pity for a girl who had just lost a husband.

Her friends were but bones and crumbled soil now, and only a vague memory of them remained. The years in solitude had erased her tenderly stored memories, and aroused many bitter ones. Against the world, against even her lover for leaving her, against her so-called friends who spited her by hitching up with each other even when the knowledge of her lover's death still lingered fresh in her mind...

But she knew something.

Over the years, her power had accumulated to impossible, staggering levels. Banished from the human race, she had been forced to leave her home, building a castle near the place where she had promised her lover to wait for him. Entrapped in solitude and loneliness, she had spent the millenniums cultivating her powers, with the hope that one day, she would be able to travel back in time to see her lover again. The mortals had all shunned her, after they found it impossible to kill her with the protection of her friends. Even after their death, their protection was still there, as the people now treated her with a mixture of horror and disgust, if they even remembered her at all.

She had made use of their fear of her, killing a choice few magic-users who had ventured into her lands (her strong, faithful, generous lover had died, why should they live?) to enhance her powers with the energy they released at their death.

-----

More years passed. Now, she could hardly remember her age. Ten thousand? Twenty, thirty thousand? It didn't really matter. All she knew now was that she was finally powerful enough to go where no sorceress had gone before - into the webs of time, and find the fine thread that was the time that... that... someone lived. Go back in time... to see... who? Someone... important... to fulfill her promise... wait for him...

She flew into the Time's realm, searching for the right thread. There were thousands, millions of them, but she found it in the end. But her body was not strong enough. Most of her energy had been spent in traveling between the worlds, and what was left was needed to make the final journey. There was not enough left to bring her body into that time, so she would have to possess someone else's. A sorceress's. Soon, her power would return, and then...

She looked for a sorceress that would be compatible with her in that time, but found none. Adel? No, she lived too many years ago. Valoncia? No, too late. She found none.

Then, wandering along the thread she had found, she had a vision of solitary woman. A fair, petite woman with long black hair hanging to her waist. She felt a certain affinity with this woman - had she seen her somewhere before? No, wait, she not alone, there they were, a few children playing in the background. The woman cowered. "No, don't harm the children, take me." Not a very good sorceress, but she would have to do.

She took the woman's body, and entered the fine thread of time.

-----

Edea. That was that woman's name. Edea. The name troubled her; something said that she knew this name, this face. Edea. It meant something. _Edea.  
_  
But now she could not remember. She had chosen to store her memories in a secret place, and locked it so tightly that even she could not take them out now.

What was she to do now? She had spent thousands, thousands of years waiting for this one day where she could come here. Now, the question was, "for what?" In the woman's body, she stalked the lands, looking for a reason for her return - return? Had she been here before? No, perhaps not. For her coming, then. There was a man - boy, really - who was willing to follow her, his love for her present body bringing him into her control. His name was Seifer. Like Edea, this name sounded so familiar...

She made him do things. Poor, stupid boy. He seemed to think of her as a mother. Well, then, perhaps the body she had possessed was his mother. How convenient to have someone do things for her, after so many years spent alone. _Kill him_, she said. He killed. _Torture her_, she commanded. He tortured. _Give me magic_, she told him. And he did - enough for her to make a thorough Scan of the entire city. She hoped to find the purpose of her "visit" here.

Then, while Scanning the city, she saw her.

A small, black haired girl with delicate features, a light step, carefree attitude and a lovely tinkling laugh. Her heart gave a jolt. She looked closer. The more she looked, the more her heart squeezed against her chest, till she could hardly breathe. She suddenly leaned back into her chair again, rubbing the ring she wore on her left hand, like she always did whenever she was upset. The ring had the head of a lion etched onto its surface, and the reverse side said Griever. She bent over and buried her face in her hands. She traced her the bridge of her nose with her finger, down to her mouth, still staring at the figure of the girl projected onto the mist before her.

She felt a certain affinity with this girl, more so than with Edea, more so than with Seifer. She wanted, _hungered_, for the girl's body. In a body that she had a great affinity with, her powers would grow much more quickly. This girl... this girl... her clingy blue dress with white wing motifs at the back, her white, flawless skin, her wings, her black eyes...

...Why did the girl remind her of herself?

-----

A/N: Really, please review. It'll mean a lot to me.


End file.
